Assault and Battery

One of the unfortunate consequences of rising early is the extended interview slot on ABC News Radio, broadcast at about 5.45 am. Frequently this will be a lengthy regurgitation of a Lateline interview from the night before, and this morning’s was no exception.

This morning we were greeted by an almost unbelievable cosy fireside chat between David Lipson and Labor climate spokesperson Mark Butler, who proceeded to spout the most egregious climate nonsense, unchallenged at every step by the interviewer.

The South Australian miracle battery, for example, was made to sound like a cure for all the state’s energy ills, despite the fact that it is a band-aid solution to a problem that should never have arisen. Proper use of gas and clean coal generation will be essential until renewables and other forms of generation are economical, but South Australia’s ideological crusade (which has turned the state into the world’s electricity crash test dummy, as I read somewhere) has meant that the lights will continue to go out during periods of high demand, with or without Elon Musk’s Duracell.

Butler then proceeded to lecture us on how Australia’s emissions of “carbon pollution” (actually harmless CO2 gas, nothing to do with elemental carbon, and not pollution either) had risen by 1.4%. That’s 1.4% of the less than 2% of the contribution that Australia makes to global emissions, or just under three-hundredths of one percent – as if that was going to have any effect on the climate.

Lipson let all this through without challenge, including Butler’s heavily implied link between Australia’s actions and the ‘survival’ of the Great Barrier Reef. All complete nonsense, of course, since China and India cannot build coal-fired power stations fast enough, and their increasing emissions will obliterate any token reductions by Australia.

Suffice it to say, after all that I needed a cup of tea to calm down. You can watch/read the whole thing here.